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| Columns |
| Backbencher |
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by
Anonymous, 04 December 2004
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10:01:24
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Would Kamuzu approve mausoleum?
Honourable Folks, does the former president, His Excellency Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, deserve the multi-million kwacha mausoleum from taxpayers’ money?
Had you asked me this question at the beginning of the Bakili Muluzi administration in 1994, my answer would’ve been an emphatic no. I would’ve argued that the late Dr Banda was a ruthless dictator who made many innocent Malawians lose everything—jobs, freedoms and at times even lives. Why honour such a leader?
That would’ve been my argument then, not now when the Bingu wa Mutharika government has invited bidders for the project. Experience has taught me better and I’ve no doubt that Muluzi would’ve been just as cruel, if not worse, had he ruled as life president in a one-party political dispensation.
Atcheya ruled for 10 years with much less executive powers yet we marvelled at how he channelled a lot of effort towards bringing back the one party state by destroying the opposition. We were also witnesses to executive attempts to turn Young Democrats into as much a ruthless party army as Dr Banda’s Young Pioneers and the accompanying weakening of police ability to arrest perpetrators of violence without fear or favour.
All this and more help me to look differently at the gentleman who accepted defeat at the ballot, handed over power peacefully without bloodshed and apologised for the atrocities committed in his name. Kamuzu departed from this world convinced that the Malawi he handed over to Muluzi was by far much better than the Nyasaland he inherited from the British.
He did a fairly good job developing the infrastructure, but he took real pride in human development. He proudly cherished our transformation from being “literally naked” when he first saw us on arrival from a 40-year sojourn abroad to a nation which, as far as agriculture was concerned, was rated by FAO as “not just a performer but a star performer.” True, Muluzi, too, may have constructed roads, schools, hospitals and sunk bore-holes but the fact remains that our second President rose to power on the pledge that he would alleviate our poverty but as he was leaving office 10 years later, we were worse off than we had been at the time he was taking over power from Kamuzu.
So, building a mausoleum for the father and founder of the Malawi nation isn’t a bad idea per se. Kamuzu deserves it. Nevertheless, I have problems appreciating why a mausoleum is a priority. President Banda was accorded a grand state funeral and, with a little more attention, his current resting place is just as good as can be expected from our economy.
President Mutharika’s priorities should’ve been strengthening instruments for good governance, putting the economy back on course, purchasing ARVs to save the Malawi nation from perishing from the Aids pandemic as he said this week and increasing the fertilizer subsidy to avert hunger next year. Frankly speaking, I think Kamuzu— the Nkhoswe Number One of the “born free” girl-child who is now six times more vulnerable to HIV than the boy-child—would’ve been more proud of his successors had they invested their energies and the country’s meagre resources in the battle against hunger, poverty and disease, the three enemies of development which he vowed to fight to the end.
In case President Mutharika doesn’t know, Kamuzu used to insist that whatever else we may lack, his wish was that at least we should always have three basic necessities—food, descent clothes and a house that does not leak when it is raining.
Today, we are dying from hunger as food is being stolen from the silos, many poorly paid but heavily-taxed workers can only afford kaunjika (second-hand clothes) and the price of cement and iron sheets renders the building of a house that does not leak when it’s raining an impossible dream to the majority of Malawians, especially the law-abiding ones who do not indulge in corruption and fraud.
Should the memory of the Founding Father of this nation then be honoured with a mausoleum? When shall we see our new leaders channelling their energies towards projects meant to improve the living standards of Malawians whom Kamuzu proudly called “my people”?
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